Automated Analysis of Spectra

We describe LONGSLIT, a sophisticated FIGARO program designed to automatically analyse long-slit spectra, fibre array spectra and velocity cube data obtained with instruments such as TAURUS or radio interferometers. The power of the algorithm relies upon a powerful Hierarchical data base system, allowing detailed control over the optimisation algorithm and clear presentation of the results to the user. Using a series of modern robust statistical techniques allows the analysis of even complex multi-component line spectra in a fully automatic manner to a high degree of precision. We describe both the novel features of our algorithm and illustrate these with real world examples from a variety of astrophysics areas.